EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: The Ex-Con’s ‘Holliday’

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Sometimes you cross paths with a person who makes you go, WOW! Jerri Holliday was a young lady when she says she was taken advantage of by a con-artist. She admits that the mistake changed her life forever as she went to federal prison. It’s how she hit the bottom and continues to rise to the top for other ex-cons that makes her our Extraordinary Person of the Week.

She’s got quite the voice as you can see on the video from Gloria Taylor’s Gospel event in 2014.
(see story video at 11pm to hear her voice, courtesy of GTMNETWORK/youtube)

2015 is just as powerful. “This used to be solitary confinement(of the old New Hanover County Detention Center that is now her non-profit headquarters),” Jerri Holliday told Daniel Seamans. “Now it’s a dressing room that we use for the men.”

Meet Jerri Holliday. She admits to making mistakes that ultimately landed her in federal prison. “When I got out, people treated me like gum on the bottom of their shoe.”

But Jerry Holliday found focus. “In 2005, the Lord placed upon my heart to start a women’s ministry,” Holliday said. “I started with the women’s ministry from the den of my home.”
A few years later she would need more room for the women she helped, so she moved her non-profit, Phillipians 3-Ministries, INC, to the Harrelson Center in Wilmington.

“Shortly after we got here, I had to do a presentation upstairs. And one man, in particular, (well)he started crying and said “do you have any services for men?” He said “I don’t want to end up like my daddy.”

It was then that her Resource Center would start helping everyone. Women, men, homeless, and even the incarcerated. Jerri says, to date, they’ve helped more than 1600 people get readjusted and ready to start a new life. She says she has clients who have been in prison for 10, 15, and 20 years who have no idea how to adjust or where to start when they get out. That’s where she comes in.

Jerri showed us all the clothes she has on hand to dress up her clients who need a suit for an interview or even work after the interview.
“We work with them one on one and during the course of it, my first question is, ‘how long did you serve?’ and they tell me(how long),” Holliday said. “And I say look at me. I ask ‘did they tell you how this got started?’ They say ‘no ma’am’. And then when I’m able to share my story, they can settle down because I do understand how they are feeling.”

So they get skills needed to get that second chance. Suits that build confidence and small accesories that are big deals. “We want them to come in, with that low self esteem, and know that you are worth it.”

Jerri Holliday, you are an EXTRAORDINARY voice in the community.

All the clothes and accessories are donated by folks in the community and businesses as well. Phillipians 3 Ministries is in need big and tall and small sizes for men.
The non-profit needs small sizes for women, if you have clothes in good shape that you’d like to give new life.
One last thing…Jerri says she is paid zero for her work and the folks she helps pay her zero, too.

Well done Jerri.
-Daniel

If you’d like more information on Phillipians 3 Ministries, give them a call at 910-617-4595